Characters

During the lecture about characters and archetypes, I was fascinated with Joseph Cambell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces" and the idea of Monomyth. As a kid we are all read the same types of stories with the basic plot line of the Hero, the Princess, and the Anti-Hero all fighting it out, and as most stories with these archetypes, the Hero wins and gets the girl, thus living happily ever after. The idea that you can find the exact same plot throughout these types of stories actually doesn't sit well with me. Obviously this statement has elements of hypocrisy, as I am a fan of movies like "Star Wars" and "Avatar." The main reason I like these types of movies, is because it allows for the creator to be as visually stunning as possible, while maintaing that sense of familiarity, therefor keeping the short attention span of viewers. However there are certain movies and shows that allow for character growth, in completely different way that that of the Monomyth.

I am currently watching a great TV show called "Dexter" on Showtime that uses the main character Dexter to mix up what you would consider a hero, mainly because he is a serial killer. The thing with Dexter is that he is constantly dealing with a "Dark Passenger" a force deep inside of him that keeps him in a non-stop battle with his public and private lives, including trying to raise a family.

The Dark Passenger is always telling him to kill, a problem that has plagued him since he was a child, which we find out was caused by seeing his mother being chopped up with a chainsaw because she was an informant for the police. Harry Morgan was the cop who found Dexter in a shipping container full of blood after several hours, and eventually he adopts Dex. This is crucial to the development of Dexter, mainly because Harry tries to install a sense of morality with a set of codes that he must always follow in order to keep his dark passeger contained. Harry understood that he wouldn't be around forever to protect his son, so the rules that Dexter must follow still allow him to kill those who would hurt innocent people. Dexter works as a blood splatter analysis for the Miami Police, giving him access to DNA, criminal databases, and the ability to know how a homicide department works. With Dexter you have a character trying to juggle multiple lives while still having to be the same person, act exactly the same way to the the people he sees day in and day out, even after getting back from a murder, chopping them up into perfect sized pieces, and dumping them 30 miles out at sea, donuts in hand for the unsuspecting detectives working side by side.